Pages

Monday, April 30, 2012

The Spot Remover

When it comes to bass fishing, various techniques, baits, and styles are a dime a dozen. Many days ill find myself debating what I want to try. Today I'm going to talk about one of my favorite plastic worm rigs, the spot remover. A couple years ago Sean picked up some weighted bass hooks from bass pro to try called spot removers. Upon initial use he had great success fishing for largemouth in lakes and ponds. It wasn't long before I decided that I had to get me some to try as well. I found out why Sean liked them so much, they had great action and a unique vertical standing position when on bottom.

Rigging of the spot remover is just a simple texas rig with your plastic worm of choice. My personal favorite is a black 7 inch Berkley PowerBait worm but color could vary depending on the lighting and body of water.

Spot Remover hook and 7 inch Berkley PowerBait worm

Texas rigging is very simple if you don't already know it. With the spot remover first poke the head end of the worm straight in from the top with the hook to allow for the extruding point of the weight to be easily inserted into the head of the worm. Then slide the hook through the worm at an appropriate spot such that the worm will be straight. Finally push the hook back into the worm ever so slightly to inhibit snagging and make the rig somewhat weedless. The picture below shows the rig better than words.

Texas Rigged Spot Remover

Now on to the fishing technique. Fishing the spot remover is similar to fishing many other weighted bass baits. The two main techniques I use are either dragging the bait in about 1ft increments across the bottom with 5 to 10 second pauses in between or popping it slowly off the bottom at a similar speed depending on how active I think the bass are. Popping and dragging through the weeds and snags is generally the key. Bites are usually seen by watching your line, most of the time you will see the line either twitch, tighten, or move in an abnormal direction. Simply lower your rod tip and set the hook.

The unique factor that the spot remover has is that when it hits the bottom the flat head of the weight causes your worm to stand straight up for a few seconds or sometimes longer depending on the bottom surface. This standing position presents an easy target to a hungry bass. In the picture you can see the spot remover causing the worm to stand straight up.

Spot Remover causing the worm to stand straight up

A second method that I typically use is a swimming/dragging method. Instead of moving in one foot increments along the bottom, you allow the bait to settle to the bottom and slowly retrieve the bait. With the added weight of the spot remover and the curly tail of the berkley power bait worm, the bait looks like a swimming fish, or a salamander. Depending on if your fishing from a boat or on the bank, you may have to stop and let the bait sink back to the bottom and slowly begin retrieving once again. This will ensure that your bait stays a reasonable distance from the bottom. You can also slow the retrieve down so that you literally drag the bottom of the lake. This will create a good bit of commotion and gets the attention of nearby bass.

A Largemouth that fell victim to the Spot Remover

There are dozens of way to fish the spot remover, not all of which involve worms. Swimbaits would also make a good compliment to the spot remover, and as mentioned a lizard/salamander would also work. The possibilities are only limited by your imagination.

The recover proportions for baitcasting reels nowadays are at 5:1 or more. Which truly makes these reels a stage up above different reels like the: centrepin, settled spool, turn cast and the underspin. best baitcasting reel